state

Californian laws requiring "net neutrality" have been found lawful by an appeals court. As so often on the topic, the legal argument is as much about who has the power to make laws as it is the legal measures themselves. While precise definitions ... vary between people with different viewpoints, the most common definition of net neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic (except that carrying illegal material) should be treated equally. One of the key issues for that principle in practice is whether Internet carriers can give priority to connections to specific sites or intentionally ... (view more)

A proposed US law would ban states and local governments from offering broadband services. Supporters of the bill say "municipal broadband" crowds out commercial providers, while critics say such services only exist to fill the gap left by the ... commercial market. If passed, the bill would become law as the CONNECT (Communities Overregulating Networks Need Economic Competition Today) Act. It would ban any state or political subdivision (such as a city) from starting to provide "retail or wholesale broadband Internet access service." (Source: house.gov ) This would apply whether it was provided ... (view more)

New York state senators want a legal ban on local governments paying ransomware demands. The bipartisanship move is based on the idea that paying up simply incentivises the attacks. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts files on a hard ... drive so that they become unusable. Cyber criminals then demand a hefty ransom to unlock the files. Two state senators, one Democrat and one Republican, have each proposed broadly similar bills. They are currently in the committee stage and its likely that one will go ahead to a full vote of the New York State Senate. Both bills are based on similar ... (view more)

A judge in Georgia says she is "gravely concerned" that electronic voting machines could be hacked. But she says it's too late to scrap them for this year's elections. Amy Totenberg was ruling on a lawsuit originally filed May 2017 against Georgia's ... Secretary of State. It called for the use of the Direct Recording Voting machines to be banned for the elections. Among the arguments in the lawsuit were that the system doesn't create a paper trail for verifying any discrepancies; that the software on the machine could be altered or replaced without detection; and that the system makes it ... (view more)

A Supreme Court judge says its time to re-examine laws that make it difficult or impossible to impose sales tax on many online sales. The decision could mean some states start collecting the tax without waiting for the law to change. Justice Anthony ... Kennedy made the comments in a Supreme Court ruling on a case involving the way Colorado attempts to collect sales taxes from companies based outside the state that sell goods to Colorado residents. At issue is Colorado's policy that any firm which does not collect and pay such taxes must provide extensive paperwork anyway. The ruling itself ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Gloria' writes: " Dear Dennis, My laptop is set to go to sleep after a period of inactivity, but always freezes after it wakes up. When I press the power button to resume from sleep, the screen turns on but the laptop freezes and ... I can't input anything while I wait for it to wake up. This goes on for some time. At this point I usually power it off completely, then restart it with a cold boot because I hate waiting. How can I fix my laptop's sleep so it wakes up faster and so it doesn't always hang? " My Response: I don't recommend powering off your laptop to circumvent the ... (view more)